Sure to put an end to countless discussions on the ever-lively kde-look mailing list, and to cut off a stream of "wishlist" bug requests, KDE CVS (look for it in the upcoming KDE 2.2-beta1 release) now features task-grouping in Kicker, the KDE panel. As is shown in this screenshot, task grouping optionally groups all windows opened by the same application in the same task-bar button. Here, 17 Gimp windows can be seen grouped in the same taskbar button, and the same can be seen for Konqueror and Konsole windows. With no more overflowing task bars, I am a happy camper :-).

It must be matching based on the name or a window property. The first few characters of the name matches, or the window property is the same, so it is grouped together. I guess this may change (maybe it is already configurable?) as this has recently gone into CVS as part of Taskbar TNG.

Yeah, especially with Konsole, where they manage their terminals on the bottom of the window. Anybody with multiple Konsoles open clearly intends to want to shift between them. I hope it is easy (or will be) for app developers to disable this feature. I can see where it could really come in handy, especially when driven with some "ai" behind it... Something to think about.

Right. I, on the other hand, am in the habit of having 3-4 konsoles open (no idea why), the grouping would just seem... pointless, since grouping is available in a single Konsole should you wish to use it.

This is a feature that will be more accepted by users after Windows XP is released, and seem as foreign as virtual consoles to any current Windows users. We should be devoting the most time now to making features like this more advanced, with more "smart" grouping, to ease it on new users. After all, haven't we all wanted a GUI that did what we want all the time, without telling it what to do?

For example, in that image, all of the GIMP images that were grouped had extremely similar filenames, yet were grouped so annoyingling... Perhaps listing them as:

(...source_y.xcf-1.0...)
(...source_py.xcf-3.0...)

...midi.xcf-17.0...

[hi64-mime-...(RGB) 100%]

In other words: include only the areas of change, the rest is ...ed out, perhaps using transparency, so the outer dot is lighter than the inner dot. Whatever. If the icons for each are different, then just show either the most used or some default. In the button itself, include everything, ...ing out the parts listed in the menu. Multiple ...s can be used. Note the way I used ()s only in the menu around the menu items that are minimized. No place else.

This is just my own random babbling of how a feature like this (which i do like, and look foward to) should be. In addition, you should be able to configure how many similar items are needed to form a group (i think 4-6... although it could also vary based on how crowded the taskbar is... if there is plenty of room, why bother?)

Hm, I think, kasbar is better, and it comes with preview windows and icons, so I can easily find what I am looking for. Too much text, especially with full path with all directories is confusing and not easy for fast navigating. When I work in Gimp I put Gimp main window, layers window, tool window and brushes window on one virtual desktop and a picture (or group of pictures if they are smaller) on another virtual desktop, and keep them opened all the time. And kasbar appears on all virtual desktops, so I use it as desktop pager.

First of all, we need to see the big piture.
Don't implement something just because it is in winXP or it is in Gnome. And if you really need to implement it make sure to implement it correctly and in a smart way. I am not sure about the details of KDE implementation, but here are my obvious observations:
- Don't need taskbar grouping if there are only two konqueror windows are open. It just slows you down. You need two clicks instead of one click to activate windows. So put a limit (4-5) on open windows before grouping them.

- Only group windows that really can show some differentiating text to identify which is which. An example is the url of the konqueror window. A bad example is gnome xterm windows. I have three xterms open. Gnome groups them and I am really frustrated since there is no text identifying which one is which. If all of them were on the taskbar, at least mentally I know their locations on the taskbar which makes it easy to switch.

- Use the taskbar fully before switching to grouping. There is no point of grouping windows when the rest of the taskbar is empty. It just slows down the productivity.

I'd definitely like to have the option to turn this feature off. I have yet to run into a situation in my use of KDE where this feature would provide an "ease of use" advantage. I'm sure that there may be other KDE users who will have occasion to use a grouping feature.

My opinion comes from use of konsole. The multiple sessions in a konsole instance was a nice feature to try out, but in practice since, I never use it. I want to have 4-6 konsoles open on a single desktop where I can view the output of each konsole. Similarly, on the taskbar, I never have more than 4-6 applications open in any single desktop.

> Don't implement something just because it is in winXP or it is in Gnome.

Actually this was on the TODO-list of Matthias since long. If you look back into the archives of kde-look in december 1999 you'll notice that I have suggested this feature way before MS or Gnome implemented it.
I think the very first OS which came up with taskbar-grouping to solve the issue of SDI cluttering up the interface was BeOS.

Usually I get several e-mails per day of people who tell me that they really like the KDE-icons and are very pleased with the work the kde-artist-team did.

While I'm quite happy with the current state as well there are still some icons KDE which I don't like yet (especially when it comes to application-icons) but this isn't something one could solve within a few days. KDE makes very much use of several different icons. In fact kdelibs has got around 800 icon-pixmaps.

The only solutions I can offer to you is:

- wait until things get better (I'm working on those icons daily and they are improving that way). You should be aware though that KDE is not meant to look Geeky/Cool by default. We try to create icons which please most people and are good icons in terms of usability as well.
- submit some better icons made by yourself to icons@kde.org which might get into KDE-CVS then.
- Create yourself a MacOS X-icontheme. After all KDE can technically do 95% of the icon-stuff MacOS X can do (except for the bouncing icons on startup .. )

I would like to ask you a question regarding some MacOS X related eye-candy. Is there anything in KDE CVS that can emulate the minimise and maximise animations that exist in OSX ? Those animations are way too cool.

Before something like that were to happen, X12 (if that's what it is called) with a new rendering engine will have to be completed. The current X is far too slow for a modern desktop. Hopefully X12 will include the ability to dynamically change desktop sizes without restarting the X server, the way MS Windows does now.

Hmmm, interesting points. In sawfish when toggling between windows, there is an option to warp the mouse pointer to different windows as they are selected. This is very useful for telling apart all of my terminals.

Perhaps the mouse pointer could similarly be warped to windows as the mouse traverses the list of windows?

Actually on the Xterm statement, it is fairly easy to title an Xterm and have that title show up in your taskbar. I generally retitle my Xterm based on my current task. I have a little alias called xtitle and I just type xtitle [title] and I am off to the races. I also rewrote the code for konsole to allow the title to show up in the task bar for the current session active in any konsole window. But that patch never seems to get applied so it is sort of a private feature ;-).

It really depends on what you call a "Taskbar". The earliest example of the precise modern taskbar ("Start", "K" or "Foot" button with a foldout menu of programs, and tiled buttons containing each running program... all along a bar that is on the edge of the screen) is on the NeXTStep platform, first released (v0.8) October 1988.

It may well have a direct ancestor; it certainly has related UI interfaces that predate it. But it's the first taskbar that really looks like the modern taskbar with familiar "buttonized" tasks, and a program launch button that flys out a menu.

- There is no default grouping limits. By default, the option is not activated.
- By grading a "group" icon from the taskbar to the application I need to group, I activate the option. Other way can be :Adding the group option on the application popup menu.
- The same can apply to a "ungroup" notion.

The whole Idea is that I can dynamically control it based on my actual requirement.

Great work, this is a really nice thing to have available, but I think it should be off by default. I think it's better to have to turn it on once for apps like Konqueror and GIMP than to have to do two clicks every time.

I think it should be on the taskbar button menu like always on top. There is already a feature (with a menu item on the window, though not on the taskbar) to save settings like always on top, could it be saved like that?

Also I think there should be a menu item for "skip taskbar". Currently the only way to turn that on is with kstart and it's very useful for e.g. GKrellM, XMMS, etc...

The point is not just so that you are saving on taskbar screen real estate, or just to group them so that you have a single point where you can swap between them. The real usability issue that hasn't been included is to kill all these open windows. Say, you have 10 konq. windows open. To close all 10 would simply be two clicks, one to click on the group listing and two to click on the option "Close all active windows" or something similar.

There is no point in grouping windows if you don't add this functionality.

> Suppose you have the taskbar set to NOT group windows together by default, but on occasion you want to group all your konqueror windows together !!
> Right click on ANY Konqueror entry in the taskbar
> --restore
> --shade
> -- ...
> --group with similar !!!
> -- ...
> --close

Yes ! (or after an ungroup with parameter on group windows)

> OTOH, Suppose you have the taskbar SET TO group windows together by default, but on occasion you want to UNGROUP the konqueror windows

Or after a group with parameter on not group windows...

> Right click on THE Konqueror entry in the taskbar
> --restore

-- restore all, I think

> --shade
> -- ...
> --UNgroup windows !!!
> -- ...
> --close

No, not "close", only "close all", because the close function is above, for each window

This is great, uncluttering achieved. Now I just need to figure out how to remove window decorations for my biff client and asclock. The FAQ only tells how to do this on KDE 1.x.
Thanks to all the great KDE developers.